Now the sense of "My Computer" is revealed for certain: it undeniably refers to "Microsoft's computer", that Microsoft forgives you for using.
You know, I've often had this 'vision' of what it must have been like in that Microsoft meeting where they decided to put the 'My Computer' on the desktop.
I imagine that it must have gone something like this...
Bill Gates: I want something that all users can see and which will make it clear to them who owns this computer.
Developer: Well we have this icon on the desktop, used to represent the computer. We've been calling it 'Your Computer'.
Bill Gates: 'Your Computer'!? How lame is that? The user will end up thinking that the computer belongs to *them*. No, change it to 'My Computer', that way everyone looking at it will know that this computer is *my*, Bill Gateses, computer.
So thats who the 'My' in 'My Computer' refers to: Bill Gates.
It'd be an interesting call as to who'd win that war of attrition.
On the one hand, the moon has much less gravity so it takes less energy for the Mooninites to hurl a rock at the Earthlings.
The Earthlings may require more energy to hurl their earth-rocks at the moon but there are so many more earth-rocks than moon-rocks that the Earthlings are much less likely to run out of ammunition.
Its interesting how facts get changed retroactively.
Like the CIA world factbook for example.
It has some interesting demographic fields:
Military manpower *available* for military service. Military manpower *fit* for military service. Total gross population is another.
You can do some interesting math with some of the figures in there.
Prior to some time in mid september of 2001 the "Fit for military service" field for the USA was, when you do the math, less than 1% of the total population.
There was no other nation on the planet with a worse ratio. The very lowest any other nation got was about 5%.
This has been corrected in all the online copies I can find going back to 1994.
Its been 'corrected' to 'NA'.
So yeah, paper tiger in every respect, except strategic arsenal. Might not be able to (effectively) invade another country but they can sure bomb the shit out of them.
Some time after the Great War, in the USA, a large band of war veterans gathered in the capital to protest at not having been paid for their war bonds (IIRC what soldiers received in lieu of actually being paid cash; they were supposed to be redeemed for money later on. Government reneged, war veterans protested).
The military didn't seem to have a problem with orders being followed when the protesters tent city was overrun with tanks and set on fire. And these were *ex* military; veterans of the Great War.
Their brothers in arms? Didn't make much difference.
Um, the United States doesn't cover a whole continent - only about 1/3 of one.
I believe I said 'Continental United States' ie not including Hawaii but probably including Alaska.
Though they _are_ working on that fence thing from what I've seen.
I know and I think its just brilliant that the current US administration is so thoughtful as to build a fence along its border with Mexico. I am sure that the Canadians will be relieved if they get such a fence as well.
And people say George W Bush doesn't *care* about the rest of the world.
You go, George! And once you've fenced off the Canadian and Mexican borders give a thought to putting up some kind of fence along your coastal areas and ports too. As high as humanly possible.
From the perspective of the rest of the world the obvious answer is to stop doing business which requires travel to or from the US of A.
I mean seriously; why would anyone want to travel to America any more? There have to be better places to do business and if you *have* to do business with Americans you get *them* to come to *you*.
This would be almost as good as building a fence around the entire continental United States (which the current administration might actually consider doing...)
but there's a reason why many (most?) lawyers want to be judges. A lot of power comes with the robe
Not to mention the kickbacks from your old lawyer buddies who are always grateful if a case can be made to take longer than it strictly needs (and thereby get to charge their clients more).
Don't humvees get like 8 or 10 miles per gallon on *sealed* roads? Wouldn't that factor down to 4-5 mpg off road?
I've often wondered how they can be called 'high mobility vehicles' when their 'mobility' is strictly limited to that of their attendant fuel convoy...
Much like these super monster laptops; mobility limited by availability of wall sockets (there, that should stop me being modded offtopic;)
At one point in his life, Jim Carrey lived in a station wagon with his family. Now he makes $20 million+ a movie. If Jim were rich, or even just upper middle class, would the drive been as strong?
He might have been able to do more than just pull funny faces... I mean thats all a Jim Carrey movie is about; how many faces he can pull...
You might think that a horse has a really big penis. But look at a horses penis sometime. Really *look* at it.
Now look at the horse.
Now look at your own penis. *Just* look.
Compare the proportions of the horse to its penis.
Now compare the proportions of your (Joe Average Human) penis.
Sure the horse has a large penis.
But if you -- a human being -- were the size of a horse, your penis would be the size of a *human*being*!
Humans have about the largest penis in proportion to body size in the mammal world. Its only reasonable to suppose that the trends which led to this will only continue, with or without our daily diet of spam.
Its O(1) in time because the sticky ends of the DNA strands form all possible solutions to the TSP in constant time. The optimal solution is in that tank of liquid somewhere.
Its exponential in space because it requires an exponentially larger quantity of sticky-ended DNA strands to initiate the reaction and form all possible solutions to the TSP.
Basically, you stir up the liquid, the sticky-ended DNA bits form all possible routes through the graph almost straight away in the form of DNA strands.
You then discard the ones which are too short (they don't visit every node), discard the ones which are too long (they visit nodes more than once). The strands which are left are the solutions to the TSP and they formed in O(1).
Ah yes, Adelman's legendary DNA solution to the TSP.
O(1) in time. Beautiful.
Still exponential in space though; the volume of DNA solution needed ramps up exponentially with the complexity of the problem.
IIRC even vaguely interesting TSP's would require an olympic-sized swimming pool.
The DNA strand carrying the answer would appear in the pool in a very short time. I wonder how long it would take for a commercial PCR machine to find the DNA strand which carries that answer...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually this would be brilliant if followed to its logical conclusion.
*Everyone* has *something* they want to 'hide from the CIA' ergo all current CIA employees should be fired and the organisation disbanded.
Best for all involved, really.
At best, it's a "nervousness" detector.
True. I think a little valium taken beforehand would render it completely useless...
I've come to think that it's rather stupid that we think of "intelligence" and "awareness" as mystical disembodied things.
Hey, speak for yourself.
My "intelligence" and "awareness" are mystical, disembodied things. I think that *someone* just needs to get a little high.
Now the sense of "My Computer" is revealed for certain: it undeniably refers to "Microsoft's computer", that Microsoft forgives you for using.
You know, I've often had this 'vision' of what it must have been like in that Microsoft meeting where they decided to put the 'My Computer' on the desktop.
I imagine that it must have gone something like this...
Bill Gates: I want something that all users can see and which will make it clear to them who owns this computer.
Developer: Well we have this icon on the desktop, used to represent the computer. We've been calling it 'Your Computer'.
Bill Gates: 'Your Computer'!? How lame is that? The user will end up thinking that the computer belongs to *them*. No, change it to 'My Computer', that way everyone looking at it will know that this computer is *my*, Bill Gateses, computer.
So thats who the 'My' in 'My Computer' refers to: Bill Gates.
People on the moon might throw rocks at you.
It'd be an interesting call as to who'd win that war of attrition.
On the one hand, the moon has much less gravity so it takes less energy for the Mooninites to hurl a rock at the Earthlings.
The Earthlings may require more energy to hurl their earth-rocks at the moon but there are so many more earth-rocks than moon-rocks that the Earthlings are much less likely to run out of ammunition.
Its interesting how facts get changed retroactively.
Like the CIA world factbook for example.
It has some interesting demographic fields:
Military manpower *available* for military service.
Military manpower *fit* for military service.
Total gross population is another.
You can do some interesting math with some of the figures in there.
Prior to some time in mid september of 2001 the "Fit for military service" field for the USA was, when you do the math, less than 1% of the total population.
There was no other nation on the planet with a worse ratio. The very lowest any other nation got was about 5%.
This has been corrected in all the online copies I can find going back to 1994.
Its been 'corrected' to 'NA'.
So yeah, paper tiger in every respect, except strategic arsenal. Might not be able to (effectively) invade another country but they can sure bomb the shit out of them.
Some time after the Great War, in the USA, a large band of war veterans gathered in the capital to protest at not having been paid for their war bonds (IIRC what soldiers received in lieu of actually being paid cash; they were supposed to be redeemed for money later on. Government reneged, war veterans protested).
The military didn't seem to have a problem with orders being followed when the protesters tent city was overrun with tanks and set on fire. And these were *ex* military; veterans of the Great War.
Their brothers in arms? Didn't make much difference.
If all of the labor unions went on strike (never firing a single shot) how long do you think the US military machine could run?
As long as it takes that military machine to organise press gangs to round up people for the slave-labor factories.
In the UK there was a General Strike many decades ago. It didn't quite come to that, but the soldiers did have live ammo.
In todays US? They'd be denounced as terrorists and their leaders would be 'revealed' as pedophiles.
You need to start your revolution in the television media first, then in the supermarkets and malls. Turn the tables.
You still need to aim with a shotgun. ;p
Hah!
Your barrel isn't short enough...
That's only because we care to try and limit civilian casualties. If we took the gloves off, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Thats right, if you purge the population and wipe out all trace of civilisation then the land will become safer for your occupying forces.
Ain't assymetric warfare a wonderful thing?
Rifles and shotguns are useless against tanks, airplanes, a precision guided missiles
Theres a reason its called 'assymetric warfare', you insensitive clod!
Um, the United States doesn't cover a whole continent - only about 1/3 of one.
I believe I said 'Continental United States' ie not including Hawaii but probably including Alaska.
Though they _are_ working on that fence thing from what I've seen.
I know and I think its just brilliant that the current US administration is so thoughtful as to
build a fence along its border with Mexico. I am sure that the Canadians will be relieved if
they get such a fence as well.
And people say George W Bush doesn't *care* about the rest of the world.
You go, George! And once you've fenced off the Canadian and Mexican borders give a thought
to putting up some kind of fence along your coastal areas and ports too. As high as humanly possible.
From the perspective of the rest of the world the obvious answer is to stop doing business which requires travel to or from the US of A.
I mean seriously; why would anyone want to travel to America any more? There have to be better places to do business and if you *have* to do business with Americans you get *them* to come to *you*.
This would be almost as good as building a fence around the entire continental United States (which the current administration might actually consider doing...)
but there's a reason why many (most?) lawyers want to be judges. A lot of power comes with the robe
Not to mention the kickbacks from your old lawyer buddies who are always grateful if a case can be made to take longer than it strictly needs (and thereby get to charge their clients more).
OSX Makes it Easy...Free. Easy to use, you do nothing.
Shit. I didn't know OSX was free. Where can I download an install set?
Thanks
Don't humvees get like 8 or 10 miles per gallon on *sealed* roads? Wouldn't that factor down to 4-5 mpg off road?
;)
I've often wondered how they can be called 'high mobility vehicles' when their 'mobility' is strictly limited to that of their attendant fuel convoy...
Much like these super monster laptops; mobility limited by availability of wall sockets (there, that should stop me being modded offtopic
I thought I told you to label those buttons, Emory?
Ever read Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier "Morning of the Magicians"?
Interesting stuff, the French connection in your post reminded me of this...
At one point in his life, Jim Carrey lived in a station wagon with his family. Now he makes $20 million+ a movie. If Jim were rich, or even just upper middle class, would the drive been as strong?
He might have been able to do more than just pull funny faces... I mean thats all a Jim Carrey movie is about; how many faces he can pull...
I think its along the lines of a split into K and r selected sub-species.
r-selected species reproduce rapidly with little care for offspring.
K-selected species reproduce slowly and invest heavily in their offspring.
It sounds reasonable to extrapolate this from the behavior of educated vs uneducated humans.
The educated breed less but spend more on childcare.
The uneducated breed more and don't spend so much on childcare.
We almost get this trend 'for free'.
the human family.
You might think that a horse has a really big penis. But look at a horses penis sometime. Really *look* at it.
Now look at the horse.
Now look at your own penis. *Just* look.
Compare the proportions of the horse to its penis.
Now compare the proportions of your (Joe Average Human) penis.
Sure the horse has a large penis.
But if you -- a human being -- were the size of a horse, your penis would be the size of a *human*being*!
Humans have about the largest penis in proportion to body size in the mammal world. Its only reasonable to suppose that the trends which led to this will only continue, with or without our daily diet of spam.
Its O(1) in time because the sticky ends of the DNA strands form all possible solutions to the TSP in constant time. The optimal solution is in that tank of liquid somewhere.
Its exponential in space because it requires an exponentially larger quantity of sticky-ended DNA strands to initiate the reaction and form all possible solutions to the TSP.
Basically, you stir up the liquid, the sticky-ended DNA bits form all possible routes through the graph almost straight away in the form of DNA strands.
You then discard the ones which are too short (they don't visit every node), discard the ones which are too long (they visit nodes more than once). The strands which are left are the solutions to the TSP and they formed in O(1).
Ah yes, Adelman's legendary DNA solution to the TSP.
O(1) in time. Beautiful.
Still exponential in space though; the volume of DNA solution needed ramps up exponentially with the complexity of the problem.
IIRC even vaguely interesting TSP's would require an olympic-sized swimming pool.
The DNA strand carrying the answer would appear in the pool in a very short time. I wonder how long it would take for a commercial PCR machine to find the DNA strand which carries that answer...
I,>Next time, try something believable, like "I eat babies" or "George Bush is my favorite public speaker".
Hey, George is *my* favorite speaker. Or would be.
Just attach some electrodes to his 'nads and he'll make an excellent tweeter.
Not something I'd do in public though, so point taken.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion...